Ashes to Ashes, funky funky to funky, we know Major Tom's a junky...

So it's finally here. The Ashes. The biggy. The bee's knees. The cat's pyjamas.

And already it's a cop out.

Australia won the toss and are 198/3. Game over. It's 4.23am in Ireland watching Ingerland getting trounced, and I'm loving it.

Stumps prediction: Australia 345/6 (Ponting 131*)

Series prediction: Australia 3, Ingerland 1.

Firefox joy

Greetings grapple fans! I'm back, and writing this in new fancy Firefox 2.0. So far so good. Anyways, I've decided that the company I work for, and the life I now lead is quite bizarre. Last night on BBC 1 news it was announced that a gang of investment banks are planning to set up their own trading platform to rival the London Stock Exchange. The LSE's fees are too high. What's strange is not only did I know this but I also agreed. I pay out around $1.3m in commission on trades done out of New York every month. My colleague pys out around the same amount of dollars on London trades but on far fewer trades. NY is better value. And I know this.

I also sent a mail to a mate of mine who works for a rival firm (yes, we do refer to it as The Firm, complete with Gene Hackman and Hal Holbrooke types) and he replied from his Blackberry. my first such encounter with those beautiful machines. Last time I saw him he'd just bought a particularly crap phone. Now I know why.

My friends are slowly leaving their youthful idealism behind in favour of cold hard cash. One wors for big law, one is in the process of joining Accenture having been rejected by Shell and I'm now in investment banking. We just need someone in Big Pharma to compete the set.

The Drinking Log

Monday November 6th- Sunday November 12th:

Friday: Post work pints in Smyths and then the we were going to the Leinster game but it was raining so in true Leinster fashion we went to the Waterloo instead. Pissed.

Estimate: 4 bottles of Heineken with ice, 3 pints of Guinness.

Saturday: What a day. A match in Terenure at 12, an international at 5, Sheehans by 7, Dicey Rileys by about 1, the Manhattan by 4, home by 6.

A mess. Guesstimate: 12 Guinness. Awful.

Sunday: We won the Leinster Cup Final beating the overwhelming favourites 19-16. Back to the winners enclosure. Some very drunk people and lots of nakedness. Mildly drumk. Well, not mildly at all.

3 bottles of Heineken, 5-7 pints of Guinness (some were ruined by beermats, cocktails sticks and lemons).

It is worth noting that between Thursday evening and Sunday night I had 4 club sandwiches and 3 Strawberry shakes. Probably not the most healthy of weekends.